I don't think I have many models at all that fly for any longer than 5 minutes. Even my 450x I only fly for 5 minutes.

I've never really been the type of flyer to fly until my battery dies. I like to leave at least a minute of fly time left on my battery in the event I have to make a second attempt on a landing or I have to wait for another flyer to land his model, etc. I hate being rushed for my landings.

I don't have that problem flying the Nano, or the 130x, but since I'm used to the short fly times, the 4 minute flights on the Nano doesn't seem to bother me.

Just finished a few flights in the living room. Man, what a blast this thing is! I'm starting to get flying precision circuits down, but I'm having a tougher time nose-in hovering this bird than, say, my brushless mCP X, 130X, or 300X. The beauty is that if I get a case of brain-lock & whack the wall, this bird simply bounces!

One thing I noticed is that for best precision, the blades need to have some drag. Just enough so that when held the bird is held horizontal with the blades straight, a good single shake will make them drop (pretty much the same as how one sets the blade-drag on larger birds).

Also, this thing really is about as tough as an mSR! I've bounced it off the walls & hardwood floors a number of times (a few times, even while spooled-up), without a bit of damage. And this is a CP bird??? Amazing. I am impressed!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dimastep

That's actually a very good analogy and good explanation. Thanks!

Dimastep,

Thanks! And, you're welcome! I flew one flight like an old fart just for you. With the curves I'm using, flying a 4:30 flight of nothing but circuits in 'normal' mode at barely-above-hover speed consumed about 95 mAh. Of course, you're not supposed to discharge LiPos beyond 80%, so that would be approximately 5:40 to the 80% discharge point with a 150 mAh cell. (Never rely on LVC, as flying to LVC on any of the Eflite or PZ UM aircraft will discharge the batteries to 90-95%. Doing that even once will cause at least some battery damage, and doing it more than a couple times or so will cause them to die very early.)

When I get mine, I see in the videos that it comes with bullet blades as well. Am I correct in thinking that these are weighted and for my beginner style of flying, I should switch to these blades? And that fancy carbon fiber bling blades are not for the type of scale flying that I do (or try to do).

When I get mine, I see in the videos that it comes with bullet blades as well. Am I correct in thinking that these are weighted and for my beginner style of flying, I should switch to these blades? And that fancy carbon fiber bling blades are not for the type of scale flying that I do (or try to do).

At 1.04g vs. 0.96g, my bullet blades are about 8.3% heavier than the regular blades. In comparison, my mCP X weighted blades are about 7.6% heavier, and my 130X weighted blades are about 9.7% heavier. So, the nCP X bullet blades are as "weighted" as the others, which do have visible weights. As Ruzam noted, it is the added weight that provides the increased stability - not the bullets, per se.

If you have a computerized radio, you can experiment lowering the throttle curve and trying non semetrical blades ... but then why not just fly an msr or an mcx?

I think there's a use case for that.

I find the mCX too slow and unmaneuverable, and it doesn't fly like a "real" helicopter due to its being a coax. Meanwhile, I generally like the way the mSR flies but the pendulum effect really detracts from the fun.

I was really excited when the mSR X came out, but was very disappointed by issues I read about (e.g. swashplate resets on rudder input or something like that). The mCP X was tempting but too big for indoor flight, so I *almost* bought the Mini CP.

Along came the Ladybird, which was way cheaper and everyone was raving about it. I actually bought it and it's somewhat interesting, but I just don't really like the way it flies very much. I'd really rather fly a helicopter than a UFO :P

A tamed down nCP X sounds like a very interesting proposition for indoor flight with a "real" helicopter.

At 1.04g vs. 0.96g, my bullet blades are about 8.3% heavier than the regular blades. In comparison, my mCP X weighted blades are about 7.6% heavier, and my 130X weighted blades are about 9.7% heavier. So, the nCP X bullet blades are as "weighted" as the others, which do have visible weights. As Ruzam noted, it is the added weight that provides the increased stability - not the bullets, per se.

Joel

Here is the way it was explained to me, The way the different blades work is actually pretty simple. Heavy blades "the bullet blades" actually swing back a little as the rotor spins and because of this makes it more stable while the Lighter weight blades do nearly to opposite, they swing straight out or even a little forward as the rotor spins and because of that it makes the blade more responsive. I know that when I first heard this I was a little confused since I thought they all swung straight out but my buddy at the field is a very experianced heli pilot r/c and full size and he gave a good analogy on how this works.....When riding in someones car stick your hand out the window, now hold your hand straight out or even a bit forward of yourself "it's really easy to make it go up and down with little effort", now do the same thing but hold your hand as far back as you can go "The up and down movement is much less sensitive to the pitch change of your hand". Just thought I'd share something I found interesting.

Can you make a realistic comparison between the MSRX and the NCPX? Outside of the acrobatics (aka, flying like an old man ) are they comparable at all, or is it totally apples and oranges? Not a Heli guy, but I do enjoy my MSRX and want to eventually move into more aerobatics. However, I'm still green enough that if I got the NCPX, I'd be spending my initial few weeks just doing basic manuevers - ovals around the yard and eventually inside the house. Would the NCPX feel like an MSRX in that mode, or would it be a completely different animal?

Not sure if you can use this but here is the charge lead I made so that I could use my normal Lipo charger. All I did was simply open up the stock charger that comes with the Nano and remove the connector by clipping the wires at the board and soldering a deans ultra plug to the other end, really easy, the only down side is that I can't charge multiple packs at once but hey it's far better then the stock charger.

OMG the stock charger sucks bad! At first I went to the LHS and got a couple of esc replacement JST-PHR-2 leads and connected them in parrallel to use with my PowerLab 6. You can see it in the picture. But charging two at a time wasn't enough!! So I got this cool PARALLEL (6X) JST-PHR-2 cable from Progressive RC and now I charge 6 at a time!

I have 12 eflight 150s and I fly 6 while the other 6 batteries charge in less than 30 minutes at 2C. It takes about 30-35 minutes to go through a set of six batteries. This equals non stop flying...of course allowing the motor to cool a little between flights and the batteries to cool a little between charges. I realize the motor will not last at this pace but this thing is soooooooooooooooooooo fun!!!! I have been following the brush-less conversion thread...

That's cool! Don't your cells need to be pretty close to use it though? I don't think that there would be much differance between them as long as new and old are not mixed.

As long as they are all reasonably discharged, it shouldn't make a difference. As far as old and new not mixed - it won't make a difference at all. Theoretically you could charge any sized 1S battery in parallel with the Nano battery, it's just series charging where you want to keep things even.